Equipping vehicles, for example, minivans, or other passenger automobiles, with sliding doors, which are arranged on sides of the vehicle and which enable a vehicle interior of the vehicle to be made accessible even under restricted lateral space conditions, is commonly known in the field of automotive engineering. Sliding doors can be manually operable. Sliding doors are also known to be movable by use of a power drive, such as an electric drive, between an open door state and a closed door state.
It is particularly significant in automotive engineering to keep the weight and the costs of an additional power drive as low as possible. For this purpose, an opening and closing control device of a vehicle sliding door for opening a vehicle sliding door installed on a side of a vehicle body is generally described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,037,727. The opening takes place by use of a power drive such as a motor. The purpose of the device is to reduce a load which is exerted on the sliding door, which moves from its completely open position along its closing direction, wherein the device is reduced in size and has a lower weight and lower production costs. Moreover, an actuating force is reduced when the door is manually closed. The control device has a power drive such as a motor, a sliding door, which is opened and closed by a sliding door opening mechanism and sliding door closing mechanism, a coupling means, which intermittently transmits a drive force of the power drive to the sliding door opening mechanism and sliding door closing mechanism, an inclination determination means, which detects a vehicle position, and a sliding door control device, which controls the power drive and the coupling means in order to set a drive force which is to be transmitted to the sliding door opening mechanism and sliding door closing mechanism. If a control for complete opening is carried out and it is established that the vehicle parks on level ground or upward inclination, the sliding door is stopped shortly before the completely open door position.
An opening/closing speed of power-driven vehicle sliding doors of typically 0.2 m/s is generally perceived by many users of the vehicle to be slow in comparison to a typical opening/closing speed during manual operation of 1±0.5 m/s. Users can therefore wish during a power-driven opening/closing movement of the vehicle sliding door to open/close the vehicle sliding door faster while dispensing with the power drive. It is to be noted that in the case of a transition from the power-driven operating mode to the manual operation, a position relationship between the vehicle sliding door and the power drive is to be maintained as much as possible, so that a control system can make use thereof as much as possible upon a return to the power-driven operating mode.
As a solution, U.S. Pat. No. 7,937,893 proposes a sliding door assembly which is actuable to move a vehicle door between an open door position and a closed door position. The assembly comprises a motor which is actuable in a reversible manner to move the door to one of the open and the closed positions. A handle is attached to the door and a handle sensor is provided to detect grasping of the handle. If the handle is grasped, a control unit activates the motor in order to move the door if the handle sensor is triggered and released without door movement. The movement of the door, with the triggered or released handle sensor, by at least a predetermined distance has the effect that the controller deactivates the motor, which enables a manual movement of the door.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 5,644,869 describes a motor drive, which moves a movable closure between an open position and a closed position in relation to a portal, which defines a passage through a barrier wall. The motor drive can comprise an elongated drive element, which is connected to the movable closure, and a ball screw drive assembly for selectively moving the drive element in the longitudinal direction, in order to position the movable closure between the open position and the closed position in relation to the passage through the barrier wall. The barrier wall can define at least one section of a stationary structure or a vehicle, wherein the passage enables an access to an interior of the structure or the vehicle. The movable closure can comprise a sliding door, a hatch, a window, a rooftop, or the like. The elongated drive element can be an assembled drive element, which has at least one gear wheel or a tooth-type element, which extends in a spiral shape in uniformly spaced-apart turns around a core of the drive element, in order to form a rigid or spring-loaded screw-type section, which can be actuated by operational connection to the ball screw drive assembly. A flexible section, such as a push/pull cable, can be attached to one end of the screw-shaped element, in order to enable the motor drive to move a movable closure along a curved or other nonlinear path. The motor drive enables a desired reversibility, manual actuation, and override operation both for linear and also for curved actuation.
Since moving manually operable sliding doors into a completely closed position requires the application of relatively high force, in particular since the sliding door typically has to be moved against a spring force generated by seals close to the completely closed position, motor-drivable closing element devices have been proposed in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,979,114 proposes a motor drive system for moving automatically closing sliding doors in such a manner that a control and a motor drive displace the door along the entire fixed path during the opening and closing movement, to then move a clevis pin or a closing element on the door via a secondary locking position into a primary locking position and to ensure complete door securing and door sealing. The motor drive system physically pulls the door and the closing element or the clevis pin connected thereto into the clevis pin or the closing element corresponding thereto, respectively, which is connected to a frame defining an opening, via the secondary position and into the primary locking position, and then starts the closing element movement, which is actuated by motor force, to move the door into weather-stripping seals, which enclose the opening. A central rear suspension roller track is modified such that it accommodates a push/pull drive element, and the displacement means are coupled to the track in order to pull the door into the open or closed door position, respectively. The advantage of the motor drive system is to pull the roller assembly and the door-clevis pin assembly in the motor-operated closing element over the entire path up to the primary locking position, beyond the secondary position. Earlier known motor-operated drive systems required a high vibration moment in order to ensure correct closing of the sliding door assemblies for minivan vehicles. The motor-operated closing element of the motor drive system activates a motor-operated closing element to pull the door into the seals.
Additionally, a driven closing element assembly is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0175845, which causes a final positioning of a vehicle closure element. Such as a vehicle sliding door or a door hinged using hinges. The closing element assembly comprises a fixed frame and a closing element, which is mounted on a closing plate, in order to be selectively engaged with a bolt, which is attached to the vehicle closure element, in order to displace the vehicle closure element from an instantaneous position to a secured position. A guide means connects the frame and the closing plate in order to cause a simultaneous translational and rotational displacement of the closing plate between end boundaries of a path, in order to generate a linear displacement of the closing element. A positioning element selectively displaces the stop plate between the end boundaries in reaction to a control signal. Finally, a locking unit fixes the closing plate in the secured position in the absence of the control signal.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 5,755,468 describes a driven closing element device for a movable closure assembly, which comprises a fixed frame which defines a portal through a barrier wall. A movable closure element such as a sliding door, rooftop, hatchback, etc., is attached to the frame for movement along a fixed path between a first end boundary of the movement, in which the closure element is located in a closed position which blocks the portal, and a second end boundary of the movement, in which the closure element is located in an open position. The closing element device can comprise a closing element, which is attached to one of a frame and a closure element. A locking mechanism is attached to the other of the frame and closure element such that the locking mechanism can be engaged with the closing element for the releasable locking of the closure element in the closed position. A holding means is provided, in order to hold the closing element with respect to the locking mechanism for a movement between a first position and a second position. A pre-tensioning element presses the holding means in the direction of the first position. A drive mechanism moves the holding means out of the first position against the pre-tension of the pre-tensioning element in the direction of the second position. The drive mechanism can also selectively release the holding means when it is located in the second position, and therefore the closing element pivots back into the main locking position in reaction to the pressure of the pre-tensioning element, in order to move the closing element dynamically out of the secondary locking position into the main locking position of the locking mechanism.
Conventional power-driven vehicle sliding doors provide a manual operation only upon request by activation of a switch or handle or a similar human-machine interface. This generally means that a change from a power-driven operation to a manual operation is not possible during the power-driven operation.
An opening/closing speed of power-driven vehicle sliding doors is often perceived as excessively slow by users of the vehicle in comparison to a typical opening/closing speed in the case of manual operation. A use of higher electrical powers of the motor drive means, on the one hand, an elevated power consumption; on the other hand, an elevated opening/closing speed of a power-driven vehicle sliding door contradicts the efforts toward a limitation of a potentially acting clamping force and a desired impression of safety. An application of high braking forces, which exceed the forces acting in a normal operation of the vehicle sliding door by many times, requires a corresponding design and is contrary to the demands for compactness in design and the ubiquitous cost pressure.
The field of motor drive devices for moving a movable vehicle sliding door at least between an open position and a closed position still offers room for improvements. In particular, it would be desirable to provide a motor drive device for moving a movable vehicle sliding door at least between an open position and a closed position, which permits at least a change from a power-driven operation to a manual operation during the power-driven operation and enables a speed of the vehicle sliding door elevated in relation to the power drive at least by way of manual operation.